


Thy Eternal Summer Shall Not Fade

by kurage_hime



Category: Original Work
Genre: F/F, Robot/Human Relationships, Sibling Incest, twist ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-21
Updated: 2018-08-21
Packaged: 2019-06-23 12:48:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 858
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15606630
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kurage_hime/pseuds/kurage_hime
Summary: You couldn’t tell us apart by looking at us. We weren’t just your run of the mill monozygotic identical twins – we were honest to goodness, cross your heart and hope to die,identical.





	Thy Eternal Summer Shall Not Fade

**Author's Note:**

  * For [anysin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/anysin/gifts).



You couldn’t tell us apart by looking at us. We weren’t just your run of the mill monozygotic identical twins – we were honest to goodness, cross your heart and hope to die, _identical_. That we wore our hair the same and tended to prefer the same styles of clothing certainly didn’t help things. But the other kids in the neighborhood also used to joke that even the placement of the pores on our noses was perfectly identical.

To learn how we were different, you would’ve had to have talked to us…and not just idle chat, either. You’d have to have _really_ talked to us. Do that, and then you’d discover that only one of us could, oh, let me give one small, random example, translate binary without a reference guide.

I’ll give you a hint: It wasn’t me.

To tell the truth, I have always preferred poetry to computer programming, and not for the reasons you might think. I can still recite all 154 of Shakespeare’s sonnets from memory. My all-time favorite is no. 18: Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?

Chihiro always said she couldn’t do that sort of recitation. She’d scoff and say she wasn’t interested in learning how to, either.

 

* * *

 

My name is Sen. My twin sister is Chihiro. Our mother named us after the heroine of her favorite Hayao Miyazaki film _Sen to Chihiro no Kamikakushi_ (or _Spirited Away_ if you’re watching the Disney version).

Yes, our mother is a nerd. Card carrying. Certifiable. Why do you ask?

She’s also a Nobel Prize winning inventor. She began her career at AT&T, in the Bell Labs AI Programming and Machine Learning Division, but after we were born, she quit her job there and became an independent contractor specializing in quality assurance protocol pursuant to Section 143 of the Synthetic Century Act of 2099. It gave her more flexibility with her time – time she used to raise us to the very best of her not inconsiderable abilities. We were home-schooled, of course…need I say more?

 

* * *

 

The first time I left home was for college. I planned to major in Creative Writing.

Chihiro didn’t come with me. She’d decided to stay with Mom and help out with the business. She was being groomed to take it over someday, I suppose. I didn’t mind. I was interested in all night poetry jams, not all night coding binges.

What I didn’t count on was how much I’d miss Chihiro – and oh my goodness did I miss her _bad_. Forget separation anxiety. I was going through separation _withdrawal_ , and it hurt so much I thought I was going to _die_. We talked for hours every day and texted constantly, about everything and precisely nothing. It still wasn’t enough.

When I came home for Christmas break, it was like looking into the mirror. On Chihiro’s face, I saw the same haggard, tense, desperate expression – in our feelings, too, we were completely identical.

We made love that very night. My bed, not hers. I don’t know why. She had to muffle her screams in my pillow when I went down on her, carding my fingers through the soft, springy pubic hair while I suckled and licked her clit. I’d never even kissed another woman in passion before, but I knew exactly what Chihiro liked most because it was what I liked most, too. We were identical, after all.

 

* * *

 

Our mother passed away tragically five years later, and as I had anticipated, Chihiro kept the family business going. She was damn good at it. So good, in fact, that she supported my rather less good career in poetry.

I’d like to think I paid her back regularly and in abundance between the bedsheets.

It was between the bedsheets – between her thighs, rather – that I first noticed the gray hairs. It was…odd. Mine were still uniformly glossy and dark. Why weren’t we identical anymore…?

“But thy eternal summer shall not fade, nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st, nor shall death brag thou wand’rest in his shade, when in eternal lines to Time thou grow’st,” Chihiro whispered before I could even articulate the question forming in my head.

I blinked with surprise. Chihiro never remembered lines of poetry! Not even my all-time favorite Shakespearian sonnet!

And I knew. I realized the truth. She was aging, but I was not. I, and I alone, never would.

“When?” I asked.

Chihiro wouldn’t look me in the eye. “Six months before we sent you off to college. You were to be proof of concept – an android that was totally indistinguishable from a specific, individual human being. Mother worked on you for _years_.”

“Was I a success?”

“Obviously.”

“And my memories of our childhood…?”

“Fabricated. I’ve always sucked at coding. But Mother knew she was ill and wanted to make sure I’d be looked after.”

“And…” I hesitated; it was hardest question I’d ever had to ask. “And _us_?”

Chihiro’s expression firmed with resolve. I’d seen that face in the mirror, too. That’s how I knew before she even opened her mouth to speak that, somehow, it would be all right.


End file.
